Get to Know Yourself Through the Oldest Personality Test

Enhance your relationships and self-understanding through a 2,000 year old personality type system.

By Wesley Baines

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There’s one person that all of us want to get to know better—ourselves.

Growing to truly know yourself is simultaneously one of the most difficult tasks you can undertake, and one of the most rewarding. When we know ourselves, when we know our proclivities, our weaknesses, and our strengths, we can make decisions that are good for us.

Knowing all this means that you can not only set realistic goals for yourself, but that you can also surround yourself with situations and types of people which make you the best you can be. Ultimately, knowing yourself leads to a happier, more productive life. One of the ways you can grow to know yourself better is through the five elements.

The five elements—the five pillars of creation—originate in ancient China, whose scholars theorized that the universe was made up of five forces—water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. Every person’s personality and health can be described as a balance of these elements in which one or more can be dominant.

Understanding each of these five elements, and which ones are dominant in your own personality, is one of the oldest ways—over 2,000 years old, in fact—of getting to know yourself. Let’s take a look at these elements so that you can better figure yourself out!